The present invention relates more precisely to a recharging station for recharging an electric vehicle powered by energy storage means, said vehicle being designed to follow a route via a point at which the recharging station is situated, said station including recharging means suitable for recharging the storage means of the electric vehicle while said vehicle is in the vicinity of the station
In accordance with the invention, the recharging station is distinct from the electric vehicle.
Among electric vehicles, electric urban buses are already known that have motors powered by storage means disposed in the buses.
The storage means of some such vehicles are constituted solely by batteries suitable for being recharged by a charger, which is itself mounted in the bus.
The batteries of such vehicles suffer from the drawbacks of being costly, of having limited lifetimes, and of presenting low “delivered power to battery weight” ratios.
As a result, known electric buses are often of small size and designed to transport about forty people, while also remaining very costly, which is detrimental to development of such buses.
Such electric urban buses often follow routes starting and ending at terminuses and serving several bus stops situated between the start and end terminuses, such routes generally being loops so that the start terminus corresponds to the end terminus.
Such a terminus is generally provided with a recharging station designed to recharge the storage means of the buses, once said buses have come back to the terminus after following their routes.
Such a known recharging station has an electrical cable connected to a dedicated electricity network suitable for supplying very high power (of the order of 120,000 watts) to the bus charger, so that the charger can charge the batteries in a few minutes.
Unfortunately circumstances exist in which it can be advantageous to recharge the storage means more rapidly, e.g. when the stopping time of an electric bus at the recharging station must not exceed the time taken for passengers to board and alight, i.e. about thirty seconds.